The Dead Saga (Book 5): Odium V

by Claire C. Riley

  But that’s good. That means I’m feeling even more.

  The shadow washes over me again, and I concentrate on following it, finally picking out another person.

  Damn, I hope it isn’t whoever’s home this was.

  The sensation is running into my hands now, not far enough down my arms to be able to push myself up or anything, but enough to be able to flex my hand and squeeze some life into it.

  The person, man, turns around. He’s tall and broad shouldered, but his face is gaunt, with pointy cheekbones and eyes as dark as hell. He smiles, and then kneels down and takes my face in his lap and begins stroking my hair.

  “Hello there, you’re okay, I got you.” His voice is soothing, and while he strokes my hair it buys me precious seconds for more of my muscles to come back to me. “I don’t know how you got yourself in there, but it’s a good thing I came along when I did, right,” he says.

  I force my muscles to work and move my head so that I can look up at him. He’s staring at me intently, his smile gone and his black eyes boring into me. He pushes my head off of his lap, and it lands with a painful thump on the ground and he stands back up.

  “You with anyone?” he asks.

  My mind says to answer yes, but my mouth still refuses to release any words. Instead I utter some garbled noises that barely resemble words.

  “You alone?” he asks, turning back to the table he was at moments ago.

  I can see his hands moving, but have no idea what he’s actually doing. When I don’t answer he looks back over his shoulder at me, a small smile playing on his lips.

  “I have somewhere safe I can take you until you get better. If you have people with you, you should tell me so that I can help them too.”

  I still can’t talk, but if I could there’s not a chance I would be telling this guy anything. I do not trust him, and I do not believe him. Seriously, I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling with this, but my mama did not raise no fool.

  He walks out of view and I take this moment to test out my muscles some more—flexing my hands and fingers, wiggling my toes. My muscles are coming back to me, thankfully, but not quick enough. I squeeze my eyes closed, wondering what I’m going to do. This guy seems like a complete loony. And there’s not many options for someone like him.

  The sound of tip-tapping makes me look up, and I wince as I move my head too quick. I squeeze my eyes closed again, and when I open them I’m staring into the face of a dog. No, not a dog, it looks like a wolf. Its teeth are bared, its ears flat, as it stares me down. I look away, waiting for the imminent feel of its teeth upon my skin.

  “Candy, come away. You’re frightening her.”

  I open my eyes and the dog is no longer baring its teeth but is panting happily, its ears pricked up and its tail wagging. The man comes back into view.

  “Sorry about that. She gets all kinds of excited when she meets new people. Not many of us around anymore, is there?” He pats the dog on the head. “And this old girl doesn’t get out as often as she’d like to anymore.” The man rubs at his nose and then scratches at the short stubble on his chin. “You feeling any better yet? I don’t like to stick around out here for too long.”

  I swallow, the taste of vomit clinging to my tongue. My mouth is dry and sticky, but still I try to speak past my cracked lips.

  “Alone,” I whisper, almost breathlessly.

  I note the infinite smile twitch on his mouth, and I’m glad that I played this card.

  “Help?” I croak out beseechingly.

  “Of course I’ll help. Candy and I here love helping people, don’t we, girl?” He pats the dog on her head again and she nuzzles into his hand, her fat pink tongue hanging from her mouth. “Can you walk? Sit up? Move at all?” he asks.

  I move my tongue over my lips before speaking. “Not sure.”

  “All right then, let me see what I can do.” The man bends over and puts his hands under my arms before pulling me so that I’m sitting upright. He leans me against the table, and when I start to slide he props me up with a box. “How’s that feeling?”

  I nod slowly. “Thank you.”

  “It’s all right.” He shrugs. “So, you’re alone?” he asks again.

  I nod slowly again. “Yes. You?”

  He smiles. “Just me and my girl here,” he says, and then scratches his hand over his stubble again. “And the wife. She’s back at the safe house. She don’t come out here at all—it’s not safe.” He laughs, though I don’t see what’s funny. “Which brings me to my next question: what in the world are you doing out here all on your own?”

  I ponder over how to answer that. I’ve already decided I don’t like him, for whatever reason, and I’m certainly not going to tell him about Ricky and Mikey and everyone and put them in even more danger.

  I give a little shrug, and then wince when the pain from my shoulder spasms through me. “I’m a loner,” I reply.

  “I hear that,” he says, watching the pain cross my face. “Can’t trust people anymore. Better to be on your own, right?”

  “Right,” I agree.

  “Well, me and the wife don’t live far from here. We’ll help fix you up and then you can be on your way again—as long as you swear not to tell anyone where we live, that is.” He smiles again, but I feel like I’m missing out on some joke. The dog—Candy—has lain down next to me, her heavy fur pressing against my legs and making me even hotter than I already am.

  “Where?” I ask.

  “Right across the street, actually, in the candy store. Name’s Tim. What’s yours?”

  Chapter Thirty

  The candy store…of course he’s from the candy store. That’s just my freaking luck.

  “Kelly,” I say hesitantly, giving my first name. If Mikey, Ricky, and Phil are over in the candy store and have told Tim about me, they will have given my last name—my nickname—so Tim won’t have a clue who I am, or that I’m lying to him.

  “That’s a pretty name. Well, Kelly, do you think you can walk yet? We really shouldn’t hang around this place too long. We don’t want another—” His eyes shift thoughtfully. “—deader, coming along and finding us do we?” He hesitated on the word deader for a split second, like the word wasn’t one he was used to, and I know for certain that he’s seen my friends now.

  Mikey is the only other person I’ve ever heard call the zeds deaders. What’s the chance that I’d run into another person who calls them that? Slim to none, though of course not impossible.

  “I think I can if you help me,” I say. I grab my death stick, gripping hold of the chains so that they don’t rattle. “I’ll use this too,” I say, and he nods approvingly.

  “All right then, let’s get back home.” He picks up my backpack from the floor. “This yours?”

  I nod yes.

  “Mind if I use it? I’ve got some supplies.” He lifts up a large dead rat and a bird of some sort, its wings snapped at an awful angle. He shoves them both into my bag without waiting for my reply and then shoulders the backpack before leaning over and helping me up to standing.

  I grunt, my legs feeling unsteady and my head woozy, and despite my better judgement I have to lean on him for support whether I want to or not. The death stick helps, but my body is just aching and in pain now. I can feel dried blood down the back of my head and I know that my stitches have likely come open, which isn’t good—though right now, I can’t focus on that. I need to concentrate on getting my muscles back under control before I discover what’s in that candy store. Korah had said it was a bad place, but how bad could it really be?

  We move slowly toward the door, and I note that the cage door has been propped open again. Though I can’t see if the water and cans have been put back in place, I’m betting that they are, because this, I have no come to fully realize, was a trap. I bet this sick fuck has them set up all over this town. No wonder Korah worries about leaving her basement.

  Out through the door is a set of stairs and we take them slowly, one
at a time. Candy is in front of us, and she runs down them and then back up. I’m guessing that she’s the scoping it out for Tim, or whatever he said his name was.

  “So, have you met any other people out here?” he asks, almost casually.

  “Just you,” I reply, leaning heavily on him, though I don’t need to. My arms and legs are tingling like crazy as feeling comes back to them. “Have you run into anyone else out here?” I ask, deciding it’s my turn for questions.

  Tim looks across at me, something flickering behind his eyes before he answers. “Nope, just you.” He smiles.

  We reach the bottom of the stairs, by which point most of my grunting and groaning is an act, as my sensations have come fully back to me. It’s as if moving has pushed out whatever poison was making them sluggish. I’m still sweating profusely, and my head is still throbbing so much that my eyes are stinging, but I can grip my death stick well enough, which means I can defend myself when the time comes.

  Tim leans me against the wall and pulls open the door. The light from outside is blinding and I squint against it. Candy goes outside and runs off, and Tim shuts the door behind her. A minute or two later and there’s a scratching at the door and a whine, and Tim opens it again. Candy is there, ears low to her skull but her tongue wagging, and I’m guessing that the way is clear because Tim comes over and puts his arm under me again and helps me to walk.

  “Thank you for helping,” I say in between small steps. “Most people wouldn’t have.”

  “Well, I guess I’m not like most folk.” He looks down at me, and that same glint is in his eyes again. “We’ll be there in a moment, don’t you worry. We’ll get you all fixed up.”

  We reach the edge of the building, and I realize that we’ve come out on the other side of the building, meaning that we’re much further away from the horde of zeds and can pass from car to car by crouching down without being spotted.

  When we get to the opposite side of the road, Candy runs on ahead and Tim helps me move slowly down the alleyway. I’m leaning on him less and less and have to make a mental effort to not push away from him entirely.

  We stop at a side door and Tim looks both ways before he pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door. It looks dark inside and I suddenly don’t want to go in—like I know that this is a bad plan and I’m walking into a trap.

  “In we go, Kelly,” he says. “Before the deaders come.”

  I look at him properly for the first time in the daylight, taking in each line and crease in his features. He looks well fed, yet sick. He rubs a hand under his nose and smiles at me. But it’s not his looks but his words that have my attention.

  “I’ve got some cooked meat inside, and Clare can fix you up a nice cocktail, I bet. She’s been saving the alcohol I found for some time now. It’ll be nice for her to have someone to drink with. I’m more of a moonshine man myself.” He smiles, his features softening to reassure me, yet he doesn’t realize that it’s in his eyes where the telltale signs are.

  “Sure, okay, Tim,” I say, leaning on him again as we step inside.

  I feel Candy brush past me and Tim reaches around and shuts the door behind us, plunging us back into darkness until my eyes can adjust once again.

  “It was just you and Clare right?” I ask, wishing that I had my gun.

  “And Candy and Cane,” he replies as we move through the darkened building.

  “Cane?” I question.

  “Cane is Candy’s brother. They help to keep us safe. And now they’ll help to keep you safe,” he says. “Not much farther now.”

  We move through a large kitchen, where pots and pans are stacked high against the work surfaces. Cans are lined up neatly, stacked high enough to reach the bottom of the cupboards they sit under.

  “Did you get the cans?” I ask Tim.

  “What cans?” he grunts out, his fingers digging into my waist as he holds me up. I’m purposefully leaning on him more than I should to make it difficult for him.

  “The ones in the cage.”

  “No, they’re dog food. No good for me to eat.”

  Candy has stopped by a closed door, and she turns back to look at us. If dogs could talk, she’d be telling me a whole lot right now, that’s for damn certain.

  “How did you know they were dog food?” I ask.

  “So, just you out there, all on your own, huh?” Tim asks again, ignoring my question completely.

  “Yes.”

  “Shame.”

  “Is it?” I ask.

  “Yeah, pretty girl like you shouldn’t be all alone like that. It’s dangerous—look what almost happened to you!” he chuckles.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I force a smile. “And it’s just you, Clare, and the dogs here?”

  Tim leans me against the wall beside the door, one hand on the handle and the other opened out for Candy to lick.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he replies with a slow smile.

  “Must get lonely.”

  “Not really. We have plenty of things to keep us busy,” he says with a wink.

  He pushes open the door and Candy goes inside, and then he drags me away from the wall and we walk into the room. It’s even darker in this room, so it takes me a moment to figure out the layout, but I eventually get it. A woman is in a wheelchair with a blanket across her lap watching an old black-and-white television. She turns around when Candy goes over to her, nudging her legs with her nose.

  The woman is soft featured, like she doesn’t belong with this man with all of his hard angles and black eyes. She smiles sweetly, and my panic, which had previously reached level one hundred, tempers down to a less-of-a-heart-attack eighty bpm.

  “Well, hello there!” the woman says, her voice as soft as her features. “Tim, you rescued another person! You know, he’s such a caring soul.”

  Caring soul? Well if that isn’t an introduction for a horror film, I don’t know what is. I can’t even think to calculate my odds of survival right now, they’re moving up and down so erratically. All I do know is that I need to figure my shit out before it’s too late.

  Tim helps me over to a small sofa and I sit down with a heavy grunt. “Thank you, Tim.”

  Tim walks over to his wife and leans over to kiss her on the lips. It’s a gentle, almost innocent kiss, and not what I was expecting. I start to doubt myself, even though my gut is telling me that this place is crazy messed up in ways I can’t even begin to imagine, and I always trust my gut.

  “Clare,” Tim says, “this is Kelly. She was hurt, sick I think, and she got stuck in some sort of cage. Can you imagine that?” he says, feigning shock. He turns to me. “Was it something you ate maybe?” he asks. “Or maybe the cut on your head. That looks pretty bad. How’d you do that?”

  I’m sort of lost as to what to say and can’t answer right away. At least until he calls my name.

  “Kelly?”

  I blink out of my reverie. “I um, I don’t really know. I was fine one minute and then the next I was puking my guts up, but yeah, it’s probably my head wound. I was fighting with a zed, I think, and banged it.”

  I make up the story on the spot and they both look like they believe it. Clare’s smile widens.

  “Zeds! Ain’t that the cutest name? We just call them ‘things.’ Never liked the idea of giving them a name. I mean, who wants to name your nightmare, right? But zeds, I could call them that. Tim here likes to call them deaders.” She looks up at Tim. “Would you be a sweetheart and get us something to eat and drink?” Clare looks at me. “I can’t get about a whole bunch anymore with my illnesses, so I’m reliant on Tim here to look after me. I bet that you’re starving, honey. How about some food?”

  I almost spit on the floor in front of me and tell her where she can shove her food. But I’m sensible and don’t. “That would be wonderful. I’m absolutely famished,” I say instead.

  Tim smiles across at me. “I’ll go fix us all up some food then. I’ll be right back.” And he kisses Clare on the lips again and l
eaves the room. “I’ll leave the pups with you, Clare.”

  Candy and Cane trot after Tim but he shuts the door behind him, so they sit down and stare at the closed door giving a soft whine.

  “Girls,” Clare calls, and the dogs stand up and move over to her, lying down by her feet.

  “I thought Cane was a boy,” I ask, my gaze moving around the room to take in my surroundings.

  “No, both Candy and Cane are girls,” Clare says, pulling the blanket up over her lap as if she’s cold. “We used to have a third dog—Cotton, he was a boy—but we lost him a while back. I don’t think Tim’s ever gotten over his loss, if I’m being honest.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, even though I’m not sorry at all.

  Odds of survival are around fifteen percent again, but I’ve spotted a crossbow in the corner of the room and I have my death stick, so I could increase those odds, no doubt. It’s only Candy and Cane keeping those odds down right now. I push myself up to standing, faking stretching out my legs and back. Both dogs sit up, their ears pricked as they watch me tentatively.

  “Sorry, I’m hurting all over. The dogs are okay with me getting up, aren’t they?” I ask Clare.

  She smiles. “Sure they are. Stay,” she says to them. “No sudden movements though. These girls like to bite first and ask questions later, if you catch my meaning.” She smiles sweetly again, but it’s the sort of sweet that makes you feel sick. Like if you put too much sugar in your tea and drink it too fast.

  It’s fake and sweet and turns your stomach but you’re not sure why because it has all the things that you normally love in it. Yeah, that just about sums up how Clare and Tim make me feel. They make my stomach turn, but I’m not certain why. I just know that they’re fake and wrong, and more than likely dangerous.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I walk slowly around the room, my death stick still in my grip, the chain concealed in my hand. I feign my hobbling, when in reality everything has come back to me now. That’s both good and bad. I can feel all my muscles, working together to keep me upright, keep me moving, but that means I can also feel the pain in my body—the aches and throbs from falling and being trapped in a cage, and just this life, I guess. At least my grunts of pain are real enough for Clare to believe, I note as she offers me a little sympathetic smile when I look at her.